


Spain, 1937

by PudentillaMcMoany



Series: Like a Gambler's Lucky Streak [4]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Slash, Smoking, Spanish Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7267660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PudentillaMcMoany/pseuds/PudentillaMcMoany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Segundus leaves Paris. Childermass is unhappy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spain, 1937

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Owl_by_Night](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owl_by_Night/gifts).



> At some point months ago I did a Tumblr prompts challenge. Owl asked me to write one where the characters said "I love you" from behind closed doors and it GREW SO MUCH and then it grew some more and I only just got around to write it. Sorry Owl!

“Good evening,” says Childermass once he’s through the door, treading heavily towards Segundus. He stops, looks at something on the table; Segundus can’t see, not with his back to Chidlermass, but he hears a rustle of papers and then a silence that is almost perplexed, and he knows that Childermass has seen.

“What are these?”

“Passports.”

“I know what they are. Why do we need passports?”

“To exist,” says Segundus, breaking two eggs in a pan of melted butter. He waits until they’re sizzling, smells the comforting smell of dinner.

“You getting existentialist on me?”

“Not yet,” chuckles Segundus. He risks a glance, almost certain that Childermass will read the betrayal in his eyes- Childermass of course being the betrayed one and Segundus the betrayer. He sees Childermass sitting at their small table, gazing into the papers as if they hold some secret answer. He is tired-eyed and pale, and his carefully combed hair are starting to jut out, as if in rebellion. Without the moustache of their first months in Paris and without the stubble of their years in England, he looks infinitely younger. He has almond-shaped eyes and a sharp, frail jaw, and he looks, Segundus muses, not a bit like a man of forty-five, feeling inexplicably proud.

“But how did you get the passports, I wonder. Can you get passports without all the other documents.”

Segundus coughs, turning back to stir his omelette. “I suppose not. I called in a favour with John, though.”

“Another John?”

“You know John. He works at the embassy.”

“Mousy-faced John.”

“Mousy-faced John. Oh, you are a horrible man.”

“But you love me anyway.”

“God help me, I do,” laughs Segundus, rolling his eyes. He dishes up the omelette, places a kiss on Childermass’s forehead and a plate in front of him. “Eat.”

He sits in front of Childermass to continue working on his article. The typewriter is still new- well, it’s very old, but it’s new for him, and he types slowly still but he’s getting better, likes the tip-tapping of fingers on keys; so does Childermass, who is not eating, but looks at him pensively.

“Eat,” Segundus nudges Childermass. He smiles too for good measure, wonders if Childermass can read the guilt on his face, t takes his hand across the table, the right one, and Childermass doesn’t let go, preferring instead to eat the omelette, slowly and clumsily, with his left hand.

“How’s  the article coming along?” He asks Segundus through a mouthful of bread.

“All that public money spent on stadiums, and people starving on the streets. It doesn’t seem right.”

“Have to prepare themselves for la Coupe.”

“It’s just football.”

“You know it’s not just football.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. Not with Italy in.”

“Bloody fascists,” says Childermass, and he seems so genuinely angry, as he cuts his way through his dinner one-handed, that Segundus, overwhelmed by tenderness, has to kiss the palm of the hand he’s still holding.

When he is done eating Childermass moves his plate out of the way and leans on the table. He puts Segundus’s hand, the one he’s still holding, on his own head.

“Go to bed,” says Segundus, carding fingers through his hair, reveling in mussing them out of their tidy backcomb.

Childermass doesn’t. He falls asleep like that, with his head on the table and Segundus’s hand in his hair, lulled by the tip-tapping of the typewriter. Segundus is even slower at typing one-handed, but he doesn’t care that much.

 

Of course the passports are not only “for existing”, they are for leaving. Namely, for leaving without Childermass, for going off to war in Spain and write articles, maybe throw some hand-grenades. Not that Segundus has ever discussed this with Childermass; he feels that it is a thing he has to do alone, his having bought a passport for Childermass as well being more of an afterthought, more of a last gift, here, I give you your existence, let me have mine.

Which is all rubbish of course, and doesn’t ease the pangs of guilt in Segundus’s stomach whenever Childermass kisses him, or tells him he loves him, or talks about his plans for the winter, which are of course always also Segundus’s plans, the both of them being, in Childermass’s mind, a whole unit of a person.

And then, eventually, it comes to a week before Segundus has to leave for Spain; he has to tell Childermass, which is excruciating, almost a torture waiting for him to come back from work at two o’ clock in the morning, anxious and sleepy at the same time.

Segundus is pacing the room when Childermass arrives whistling l’Internationale of all things. He springs through the door, sweeps Segundus in his arms, kisses him. Which is worse; had he had an awful day at least Segundus wouldn’t feel so guilty to ruin it. He takes Childermass by the shoulders, presses their foreheads together. “You might want to sit.”

“Is anything amiss,” frowns Childermass. He has a confused face, which soon becomes a concerned face, and then a pondering face. Childermass doesn’t like to be confused or concerned, but he likes to ponder, has a quick wit that makes him reach the right conclusion very easily. This makes Segundus proud usually and nervous now. He stands as Childermass sits down, which gives him a little advantage at least.

“I am leaving for Spain in a week,” he says. No point delaying the inevitable. He feels almost lifted by that, a swift blow and everything.

“We can’t leave for Spain,” says Childermass, a corner of his mouth lifting in incredulous pride- and as always it’s _we_ not _I_. “Not now that I’m doing something good with the union.”

“I know,” says Segundus, and braces himself. “I’m going alone.”

He sees Childermass’s face collapse on himself, sees him frowning again, concerned again, although this time he never makes the passage to plotting. He takes a cigarette, lights it, blows smoke from his nose.

“You can’t go.”

Segundus hears himself laughing, hates himself for it. “Excuse me?”

“You are not fit for war. You are too frail for war; you will come to your senses.”

“I am perfectly _into_ my senses, thank you very much. I’m going, John.”

“Then I’m going as well. I don’t care about the union, I care about you.” Chilermass stands, almost to underline the meaning of his words, does that tilt of his head that Segundus loves, looks at him sideways. And Segundus is almost plied- war is scary, and Childermass is comforting, and he is afraid. But he doesn’t waver.

“I have to go alone.”

“Don’t be unreasonable.” Childermass reaches for him, but Segundus steps away. He’s shaking like a leaf, feels almost nauseous with fear; they have come so far, they have done so much! And this can break them, will break them, and then what? Childermass is the love of his life.

“I’m being perfectly reasonable. John. Look at me,” he pleads, cradling Childermass’s face in his hands. “I need to go alone.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” says Childermass. He sounds like he’s begging, which is unusual, unsettling. Segundus loves him and hates himself for a moment, and then he feels angry at both of them, for this wretched affair of love, drops his hands from Childermass’s face so that they clutch at his own sides.

“Am I now.”

“You’re going to die, and it will kill me.”

“Always so melodramatic,” he spits, and he doesn’t mean to, but sees the hurt in Childermass’s eyes, his body recoil away from him like he’s been stabbed. Wordlessly Childermass stubs out his cigarette, takes the packet and leaves their room quietly, out of the door, into the rain now mercilessly pit-patting on the windows.

Segundus doesn’t cry, or better, he _decides_ not to cry. He pours himself a glass of wine, sits on the bed and tries to work on an article. He falls asleep.

He wakes up to Childermass’s weight on the bed, Childermass’s rain-soaked body close to him, kisses on his neck his cheek his chest.

“I am sorry,” murmurs Childermass, and Segundus, half-asleep and pliable, holds him close, peels off wet clothes off narrow shoulders. He opens his mouth to Childermass’s kisses, and later welcomes Childermass’s hand unzipping his flies, his own name on Childermass’s lips, grateful that, at least for tonight, he hasn’t broken them; that he still has Childermass’s warmth against him and his mouth on his cock, electrifying and tender and alive.

 

In the next days, Childermass doesn’t talk about Segundus leaving for Spain. What he talks about are news of casualties, of the communists accusing the anarchists of fascism and the anarchists accusing the communists of everything else; of how cold is the winter in Spain and how hot is the summer; how bad the boots they sell there, the cigarettes.

Segundus understands that this is Childermass’s way of showing concern, of asking him not to go. He wouldn’t ask him directly to stay, not after what he told him on the night Segundus said he was leaving. And it’s sweet in a way, this concern, this love; until it isn’t, until it’s nauseating, sticking on him when Childermass isn’t there, making him guilty, anxious, afraid. So on the night of the third day before he leaves, he waits, awake, for Childermass to finish his shift, in their cold kitchen at two in the morning.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Asks Childermass when he opens the door and sees Segundus awake, sitting straight on the chair like a schoolboy, the kitchen dark apart from a tallow candle in the middle of the table.

“It’s the nerves.”

“Understandable.”

“It’s not for Spain.”

“Then what?”

“It’s for you.”

Childermass recoils, squeezes his eyes shut as if in fear of a blow. He takes a deep breath and then sits at the kitchen table, lights a cigarette, raises his eyebrows. “Go on.”

“I was so alone, John.”

“Me too, before I had you.”

“No.”

Childermass snorts in disagreement. He doesn’t say anything.

“It was a different kind of alone. I do not think you understand. You had your people- you always have. The servants and the innkeepers and all the poor sods of the world. I am not saying this with contempt; I admire you, envy you even, for this family you can make for yourself. I would love to have it too, but I don’t.”

“You _have_ it.”

“No I don’t. You wish I had it, when you talk me into coming to the Union’s meeting, but I don’t fit in. I know it, and worse, the people there know it. It’s- I know it’s entirely different, but it feels like the Society of Magicians. It feels the same for me.”

Childermass is silent. He seems to be pondering, which is reassuring in a sense.

“I was only happy when I did magic,” adds Segundus after a long silence.

“Is that why you have decided to kill yourself off?”

Segundus breaths, deeply, steadying. He lights a cigarette for himself too, taking time so that he can be calm when he replies: “It’s quite the opposite really. I think- I think I need something bigger than myself, like magic; an adventure, even. To feel like myself again.”

“Aren’t you sick of adventures?” Asks Childermass, nodding his head towards their kitchen, towards Paris and this world. He seems almost amused, in a cruel way, a faint glimpse of the person he was.

Segundus shakes his head in a tiny movement. It’s enough to make Childermass sigh as he takes his hand, holding it in both of his big ones almost pensively.

“Can I write?”

“I would like that.”

“Can I visit?”

“In due time.”

“Ask Ernest to teach you how to build a fire.”

Segundus laughs, places a hand on Childermass’s knee. “Is that your greatest concern?”

Childermass seems confused at this, laughs too, a little bit ruefully. “I do not know. I said the first thing that came to my mind. I suppose he could teach you how to hunt for rabbits, or-”

“John.”

“Anything. Have him teach you everything.”

“ _John_ ,” says Segundus again, and this time he can hear his voice break, which is inconvenient.

“I will miss you terribly. I will make myself sick with worry. Forgive me for burdening you, but I had to tell you. I will have no one else to talk to. Of us.”

Segundus feels tears stinging at his eyes, guilt and relief making him almost unfocused, making his heart beat faster along with the excitement of knowing that he can go, that Childermass will let him, that this might not break them after all. “You can talk to Adrienne. She understands. She knows, even, she told me!”

“Smug bastard that she is.”

“Promise you will visit her at least once a week.”

Childermass sighs in defeat, brings Segundus’s hand to his lips. “You have always been very stubborn, my love.”

 

The matter settled, during Segundus’s last days in Paris they almost don’t see each other.

Their lives pass by almost mirrorlike, one the reverse of the other. When Childermass sleeps Segundus is awake, and when Childermass is not working Segundus is; seeing people, sorting out the last presentations for Sylvia, making arrangements with newspapers that might be interested to war chronicles. They almost don’t kiss, almost don’t touch; or rather, one of them inevitably does, curling himself around the sleeping figure of the other, but rarely when they are awake, almost in a prelude of their future separation. It should hurt, but Segundus would rather have this than the mute accusation in Childermass’s eyes. He finds it useful besides, to acquaint himself with the absence- his own absence from his life in Paris, that is.

And so it’s no surprise, really, that when Segundus leaves for good, on a cloudy warm day at the central station, Childermass I not there; that he’s not there, among their friends saying goodbye a little bit theatrically, Adrienne with flowers for him and Ernest, John from the embassy with smiles and Sylvia, who is always practical, with cigarettes. Segundus doesn’t blame Childermass, really, he knows that he doesn’t want to be there, although if pressed he would answer that it’s because has work; and all in all Segundus doesn’t even wish he had come. What could they do anyway? There’s no holding hands for them, no crying at the station. They can kiss, but only on the cheek. They can hold each other but only briefly, friendly, and it’s a gift of this world, this city, that Segundus is grateful for. But it wouldn’t be enough- not for them, not because of this new times; it’s never been enough, the simple fact of contact, for the complicated thing between them. A love like this require complicated goodbyes. Although, what if he dies, and they haven’t even had the simple comfort of holding hands at the station?

What if he dies, he finds himself thinking, and suddenly he feels an emptiness in his chest, a sort of ugly spiked creature lodged in his throat. He wants, instantly, Childermass to be there. He regrets leaving, now that he is leaving; he feels, for the first time, the real nature of longing- not romantic, not soft-edged and rose-hued, like in songs, but heavy and grey, not unlike lead. How does he go about life without Childermass? He can, of course. But does he want to anymore; and what’s the point of this self-inflicted torture, of this solitude. For the first time he second-guesses himself, which he doesn’t like one bit. Sylvia notices of course. She comes closer, holds his hand. Looks at him with her steady clear gaze, gives him a handshake.

“You need to hop on board if you don’t want to miss your war.” She gestures towards the train, towards Ernest behind the window, fitting his luggage into the rack.

Segundus nods. He boards the train clumsily, perches himself on the window to say goodbye to his friends, conscious for the first time that he is going to war without Childermass. He wishes that he could see him one last time because he now has the terrible fear, almost a certainty, that he is going to die after all- which is preposterous and terrifying, but also raw against his throat like shards of glass.

And then Sylvia turns, and smiles at Segundus, Adrienne gestures with her head. He hears _John!_ , a call, urgent, to him. Childermass runs down the platform, says sorry to the people he’s elbowing along the way and, panting, stops in front of the train car, just looks at Segundus with hands on his knees, with his chest heaving.

“John?” Asks Segundus, uncertain, trying to look for Childermass in the clean shaven face of the man on the tracks, in the pale light of midday.

“Mr Segundus,” breathes Childermass, and John gives a jerky nod of his head, rips himself off the window and runs down the corridor, to the door of the car, still open (“The train will depart in five minutes”, announces a speaker). He all but throws himself in Childermass’s arms, not thinking of the people watching, of Ernest still struggling with their luggage, of Sylvia and Adrienne on the tracks. “John,” he says, his face buried in the crook of Childermass’s neck.

Childermass hesitates with a hand on his side, huffs a laughter that Segundus can feel vibrating in his chest. It’s a strange way of holding each other, like this, with the train doors menacing to close on them, snapping on them like a sort of mechanic muzzle; with the gap of train and platform pulling them apart, with the height difference that comes from Segundus being still on the train, Childermass on the platform. They look at each other. They don’t kiss. It’s of no consequence for Segundus, who has Childermass’s hand in his.

“Write me as soon as you reach Barcelona,” says Childermass, and for Segundus that is the first order of the war. He nods, not _non-_ martially. 

“I will miss you,” he whispers, almost panicked, as soon as the station master blows into his whistle that it’s time to leave.

“You be good,” Childermass says with his voice hoarse, stepping away while still holding Segundus’s hand, as if in a last faltering of his strength, as if to pull it close to him, in Paris with him, again.

“You too,” smiles Segundus, as soon as Childermass frees him. The station manager comes between them to close the doors of the car, the wheels creak and then, with a great huff of machinery and a great cloud of smoke the train starts moving, slow at first, out of the station.

Segundus is already sitting in his place when he next sees Childermass next, running next to the train almost black-and white in the saturated light. “John,” he’s calling, although Segundus cannot really hear him, not in the rumble of the train moving, not in the chat of the people around him, or the pit-patting of the rain starting to fall around them. But he sees him, presses his face against a windowpane not unlike a child, calls for his name, John Childermass.

 _I love you_ , he hears him saying, no, he reads it on Childermass’s lips, from behind the closed window, from outside the closed doors of the car. It’s the last thing he sees before the train enters a tunnel, before it all goes black around him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> More is coming! SO MUCH RESEARCH HAS TO BE DONE.  
> I might be tangled in my own timeline too. This series was supposed to be a cute oneshot WHAT HAPPENED.


End file.
